Turn Your Head and Coffee
by Bastard Snow
Summary: 8th in the Coffee series. Scoobies head to New Jersey to find a slayer who’s been hospitalized.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Turn Your Head and Coffee  
Author: Bastard Snow  
Rating: Teen-ish

Summary: 8th in the Coffee series. Scoobies head to New Jersey to find a slayer who's been hospitalized.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.

A/N: Thanks to Rob Sorenson for the idea (over a year ago) for the title. I've just been waiting to use it ever since then, and finally found the idea to go with it. Also thanks to Drake for beta'ing.

Feedback: Yes, please!

* * *

The folder slammed down on his desk, waking him from his mid-day nap and almost causing him to fall out of his chair.

Gregory House, M.D. gave his boss, Lisa Cuddy, the evil eye. "I was dreaming about Carmen," he complained.

"Case for you," she said. House picked up the file and opened it. "Her name's Sandra. She's from Camden."

"Too bad for her," House said. He looked at her chart. "She's healthy."

"Perfectly healthy," Cuddy said. "She's your patient."

House looked up at Cuddy and blinked. "I don't know if you know this, but this is a 'hospital.'" He made quotes with his fingers. "Here, we treat 'sick people.' It's kind of a thing we do. Although if you're looking to dramatically redefine the word, that's fine with me. I'll have more free time."

"Look at the chart again," Cuddy said. House sighed and looked at the file again. His brow furrowed of its own volition. Blood pressure was perfect. Cholesterol, perfect. Blood oxygen, blood sugar, body mass, all perfect. House raised an eyebrow at Cuddy. "And she's beautiful, too."

"I've never seen test results like this," he said.

"Nobody has," Cuddy told him.

"It's odd," he told her. "But she's healthy. I don't see why I should be interested in it, other than as a medical improbability."

"She broke her arm last week, compound fracture," Cuddy said. She handed him x-ray films. "These were taken two hours ago."

House held the film up to the light to see it better. "That's impossible," he said. The bone was completely healed. He couldn't even tell where the bone had been broken.

"Now, I know you're a diagnostician, but I'm willing to bet you want to know what the hell is going on here just as much as I do."

"Not quite," he said. "It's intriguing. Something for researchers. Put the girl in a wheel and have her run to her little heart's content. I'm still interested in sick people."

Cuddy sighed. "I'll cut off one hour of clinic time a week."

House smiled, picked up the phone and paged his team. There was work to be done.

----------

"Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital," Xander read.

"Teaching hospital," Willow corrected.

"We got a Slayer in the hospital?" Buffy asked. "Before we identified her? That sucks."

"Well, at least we'll be able to tell her why she's healing fast," Xander said. "Because that part's good."

"Not that it makes up for the rest," said Faith, "but yeah, it don't suck."

"We've got her name?" Buffy asked.

Xander held up a piece of paper. "Sandra… um… Tally-a-ferrow?" he asked, pronouncing the word phonetically. He handed the paper to Willow.

"Taliaferro," she read, pronouncing it 'Tolliver.'

"Why the hell's it spelled that way?" Xander asked. "That's stupid."

"Okay," Buffy said. "How old is she?"

Willow looked at the paper again. "Seventeen. She's… a gymnast – presumably a very good one – and we don't know why she's in the hospital."

"Great," said Buffy. "Well, why don't you guys wait here and I'll go see if I can find out her room number."

"Uh, Buff, no offense," Xander said, "but it's been well established you suck at undercover."

"He's right," Willow agreed. "I mean, you're worse than I am. And I'm really bad."

"Come on," Faith said hooking her arm through Xander's, but being careful not to disturb the cast. He was still healing from that tussle in Neptune. "We'll get it."

"We will?" Xander asked, as he was dragged along behind Faith. "Apparently we will."

The pair of them walked into the hospital and up to the information desk. Faith scanned the desk and saw two middle aged women behind it.

"Okay, you're up," she said.

Xander looked bewildered a little. "What? I'm what?"

"You're up," she said, shooing him towards the information desk. "Turn on the Harris charm."

"That was your plan? We come in here and I charm the room number out of the nurses?"

"Sure, unless they were dudes," Faith said. "Then I'd be up."

Xander blinked at her. "Remind me never to have you plan a vacation."

Faith looked up at him quizzically. "As if this whole thing isn't just some kinda extended vacation?" she asked.

"Right," he confirmed. "As if. All right, here I go."

Xander walked nervously up to the information desk, eyeing the women behind it. He chose the woman with the kindest eyes and aimed for her. He stood in front of the desk for a moment before clearing his throat.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

Xander glanced down at the nametag on the woman's scrubs. "Hi, Tammy. I'm visiting a friend of mine," he told her, "and I've forgotten which room she's in."

"Name?" Tammy asked.

"Sandra Taliaferro," he said, pronouncing the name as Willow had told him. "Only it's spelled Tally-a-ferrow."

Tammy punched a few keys on her keyboard, said 'hmm' a few times, punched a few more keys and frowned.

"Problems?" Xander asked, a nervous smile crossing his face.

"Only for your friend," Tammy said. "Her doctor is Gregory House."

"That's bad?" Xander asked. "What, is he a drunk? Bad doctor?"

"He's probably the best doctor at the hospital," Tammy said, pulling out a map and circling both their current position and the position of Sandra's room. "He's just an incredible ass. Room 415. Have a nice day."

Xander smiled, thanked her and took the map. Walking over to Faith, he studied the fastest way to get there.

"So?" Faith asked.

"Success," he said. He turned the map around. "But if we're currently in New Jersey, I think we have to go park in Spain to get to her room."

Faith took the map and followed Xander back outside.

"So?" Buffy asked.

"Well, we found her," Xander said. "And she's about as far away from our current position as is possible while still being in the hospital."

"Xander?" Faith said, looking at the map.

"Yeah?" he asked.

She hooked her thumb back over her shoulder towards the area they'd just exited. "She's just up the elevator from the lobby. Fourth floor."

"That's impossible." Xander took the map back and looked at it again. "No, see? She's way over there." He pointed over the building and into the distance.

"They print each floor separately, numb nuts," Faith told him. "Because they don't have holograms to do it 3D."

Xander pondered the map again. "Oh," he said. He squinted a little at the map, then at the fourth floor. He counted rooms and with his good arm pointed to one where a teenage girl was standing at the window, looking sad. Xander lowered his arm. "I think that's her."

"What's her doctor's name?" Willow asked.

"House," Xander said. "Gregory House."

"Okay. I wanna look him up before we go into this," Willow said.

"Which means?" Faith asked.

"Getting into an empty room and accessing their network," Willow told her. "Shouldn't take more than ten minutes."

----------

"All the tests we've run show a perfectly healthy seventeen-year-old girl," said Dr. Allison Cameron, an attractive young brunette who was seated at the clear glass table in House's conference room. "I don't understand why we're keeping her here."

"Because she's too healthy," Dr. Eric Foreman said. "Because compound fractures don't heal perfectly in a week." He pointed at House. "Because Sherlock Holmes over there loves nothing better than solving mysteries."

"Not true," House corrected with a wave of his cane. "I find Swedish massage to be quite delightful."

"But we can all agree that what happened to this girl shouldn't be possible, right?" asked Dr. Robert Chase, swiping some of his blond, Australian locks out of his face. "I mean, this isn't something that anybody's ever seen before, right?"

"Very good, Dr. Chase." House patted him on the head like he was a puppy. "Glad you're with us today."

"What I mean is, as far as undocumented things go, this is right up there."

The door swung open and Dr. Wilson, House's best friend joined the fun. "Blood tests are back," he said."

"Wait," said Dr. Foreman, "You're picking up blood tests for us now?"

"He's our new intern," House said. "It's always been his dream to work for me. That, or sleep with me, I've never been able to figure out which."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "I had some labs of my own to pick up and I thought I'd save you a trip." He tossed a folder on the table for all to see. "Tox screens negative, blood sugar, blood oxygen. White count's a little elevated, but nothing out of the ordinary."

"High enough to worry about cancer?" asked Cameron.

Wilson shook his head. "High, but high normal. I'd just say she has a very healthy immune system."

"So what are we looking at?" Chase asked. "I mean, really. What can we find out from a perfectly healthy girl whose broken arm healed too quickly?"

House's foot tapped rapidly against the leg of the table. "Okay. Do a cardiac stress test."

"Why?" Foreman asked, looking confused. "Do we suddenly think she has heart problems?"

"Just a hunch," House said.

----------

"You're from where?"

"Cleveland," Xander said, sipping his horrible hospital coffee. "Or, well, California, originally, but now Cleveland. And occasionally England, I guess. We don't really –"

"We're from an all-girl's school," Willow cut in, shooting a look at Xander. "And we're interested in offering you a scholarship."

"Don't you think this is a really odd place to approach someone about this?" Sandra asked. She was wearing the paper gown typical to all hospitals, and sitting up in her hospital bed.

"Well, it's a very special school," Buffy said, taking a sip of her own coffee and scowling at the taste.

"You guys know I'm not retarded, right?"

"Not special like that," Willow said.

"Are you guys drug dealers?" Sandra asked. "Because I don't use. And they test us for that kind of stuff."

Faith stepped up. "Look, back a while ago, you got real strong and real fast, yeah?"

Sandra looked at her warily.

"Hey, nothin' against it," Faith said. She pointed between herself and Buffy. "We got the same deal, sorta. We're just here to offer you the opportunity to learn more about what's happened to you, what it means, how you can protect yourself."

"Protect myself?" Sandra asked. "Are you sure you guys have the same thing? Because I'm pretty sure I could take any of you in a fight."

"Uh, me, maybe," Xander said. He looked around at the group of four girls, any of whom could kick his ass and thought, not for the first time, that he needed some male friends. "But the three of them… not so much."

"And it's not protection from regular people," Buffy said. "It's protection from other things. Scary things. Things that are strong, like you. Like us."

"You said that only the two of you are like me –"

"Slayers," Faith said. "We're called Slayers."

"Okay, good, scary," Sandra said nodding. She pointed to Willow. "But one-eye over there said you could take him in a fight. What's with that?"

Willow shrugged. "I'm a witch."

"A witch?"

"Uh huh."

"Missing some warts, aren't you? And a long crooked nose?"

Xander, Buffy and Faith groaned.

Willow, looking offended, took a deep breath and prepared to launch into a rant about unfair and stereotypical depictions of witches throughout history and the media. Instead, a hand planted itself over her mouth.

"No," Xander said, "that's just an ugly stereotype, and certain people in the room would prefer that it be put to a quick and timely death."

"Prove it," Sandra said.

"That it's an ugly stereotype?" Xander asked, removing his hand from Willow's mouth. She glared at him.

"No. Prove that you are who you say you are." She pointed at Faith and Buffy. "Prove you're like me." She pointed at Willow. "Prove you're a witch."

Xander sighed and sat in one of the chairs. In succession, Buffy picked the chair up one-handed, tossed it to Faith. She caught it nimbly and placed it back down.

"That came really close to the ceiling," Xander complained as his chair levitated and floated back to its original position. He looked pleadingly at Sandra. "Please tell me that was enough. Because Will can turn me into a ball that's just as heavy as I am, and they'll juggle…"

Sandra laughed.

"Excuse me." They turned and saw Dr. Chase standing in the door of the room. "May I ask who you are?"

"Oh," Xander said, "we're –"

"Friends of mine," Sandra said. "I got bored and they came to cheer me up."

"Oh, okay," Chase said, eyeing Xander warily.

"It's the eye patch, isn't it?" Xander asked. "Always gets people. I lost it in a construction accident, haven't felt like getting fitted for a glass eye."

"And the arm?" Chase asked.

"Fight," Xander said, shrugging.

Faith sidled up next to him, wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned her head into his chest. "Couple of guys jumped me," she said, looking up at him with love and amazement in her eyes. "He saved me."

Chase smiled and nodded. "Unfortunately, we have to take Sandra here off for some tests, so you guys'll have to come back later."

"Sure," Buffy said, smiling at him. Chase smiled back and allowed them to pass out of the room.

"So what am I doing?" Sandra asked.

"Stress test," Chase said. "Just wanna see how your heart's working."

Sandra nodded and stood up. She glanced at her backside, visible through the, well, gaping hole in the back of the paper gown. "Can I get some better clothes?"

----------

End Chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Turn Your Head and Coffee  
Author: Bastard Snow  
Rating: Teen-ish

Summary: 8th in the Coffee series. Scoobies head to New Jersey to find a slayer who's been hospitalized.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it

A/N: Thanks to Rob Sorenson for the idea (over a year ago) for the title. I've just been waiting to use it ever since then, and finally found the idea to go with it. Also thanks to Drake for beta'ing

Feedback: Yes, please!

* * *

House looked up from his portable television as his three assistants walked into his office.

"Results?" he asked.

Foreman shook his head. "No results."

"No results?" House asked, sitting up. "Did you not run the tests?"

"Oh we ran the tests. Checked the machines out, hooked 'em up to Sandra, put her on the treadmill and started her running. Never really got her heart rate up."

House eyed them oddly. "Why didn't you?"

"We couldn't," Cameron told him.

"Define couldn't."

"We were unsuccessful at increasing the patient's heart rate significantly." Chase was obviously frustrated. It was rare that he spoke so formally. "Look, we had her running on the treadmill on the highest setting for twenty minutes, and the girl barely broke a sweat. She was hardly exerting any effort. It was… I've never seen anything like it."

"Did you print up a report?" House asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Sure, for all the good it'll do." Foreman handed over the folder. "The girl's a freak."

There was a knock on the glass door behind them. The doctors turned to the side and saw a young redheaded woman standing outside House's office.

"Another one of your little chippies?" House was looking pointedly at Chase.

"What? Me, no. She's one of Sandra's friends," Chase said. "Group of them were visiting her when I went to take her in for the test."

House waved the girl in.

"Hi," the young woman said cheerily.

"Hello," said House. "And who might you be?"

"My name's Willow," she said, stepping up through the group right in front of the desk. "You're Doctor House, right?"

"So you can read door signs. Well done."

Willow smiled at him. Her smile was radiant, cheerful, endearing. House wondered what she was hiding.

"So, you're probably wondering about Sandra's test results."

"What test results?" House asked.

"The ones in that folder on your desk," Willow said. "The ones that are telling you that, physically, she's far advanced from any other person you've ever met or had the pleasure of poking or prodding. Also the ones that are not on your desk, that show her elevated white count, but perfect cholesterol, perfect blood sugar, blood oxygen, and a body mass index that is, by any standard, unfair. The ones that show you her broken arm healed in a week, when she should be in a cast for six more, minimum with the kind of break she had. Those test results."

Everybody in the room stared at her, leaning away as if she had an unpleasant body odor. They were all very surprised.

"Well you're wrong about one thing," House said after a moment's silence. He picked up another folder. "Those other results are on my desk."

"That folder says Rodrigo Sanchez," Willow said.

House glanced at the tab. "So it does. Who are you?"

"I told you, my name's Willow."

"Yes," House said, "but who in the hell are you?"

Willow smiled at him. "My associates and I work for what you might call an interested party. Sandra is, within the next few hours, going to have her parents check her out of this hospital."

House opened his mouth to protest, but Willow held up a finger. "Against medical advice or not," she said. Willow reached into her pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to him. "I've read your file, Dr. House. You're very good at what you do, when you decide to be. If you ever get bored here, or if you ever want to find out for real what happened here, give us a call. We could use a good doctor."

House took the card and glanced at it. "Cleveland School for Gifted Girls?" He looked up at her. "What possible use could you have for a doctor of my pay grade?"

Willow winked at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

* * *

House leaned against the pillar by the nurses' station as he watched Sandra and her new friends pack up her things. The guy with the eye patch was helping to load her things – books, magazines, iPod – making nice with the parents, shaking hands and cracking jokes and all around being a comfort. A blonde, a brunette and that girl Willow were all sitting around Sandra's bed, laughing, telling stories and making some odd gestures.

The interesting thing was, any time Sandra's parents made to check on their daughter, eye patch guy drew their attention again. House wondered if he was doing that because the girls wanted time to themselves or because they were saying something that the parents didn't need to hear. House's eyes narrowed.

Eye patch guy handed the box off to Sandra's father, who smiled, thanked him and shook his hand. Sandra's mom did much the same, adding a kiss on the cheek. Eye patch guy nodded at them, turned to the group of girls for a moment then left the room. And approached House.

"Excuse me," he said, smiling. "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?"

"Yes," House said. "But only if you tell me…" he paused and chose his next words carefully. "Only if you tell me who you are, and why the Watchers are as young as the four of you. And why you're operating out of Cleveland. And how exactly you lost your eye."

Eye patch guy blinked at him and stood up straighter. He looked House over for a moment, raised his eyebrow and held up one finger. "Xander Harris," he said. He pointed over his shoulder and held up another finger. "We're not really Watchers. Blonde girl was the Slayer, me and the redhead got involved because we're friends. Brunette was called when another Slayer died."

"That's impossible," House interrupted.

"Not with CPR," Xander said. "Blonde girl died, I resuscitated her, she killed the guy who killed her. Second Slayer was called, she died, brunette girl was called."

He held up a third finger. "There's a Hellmouth there." He held up a fourth finger. "Evil bastard with a thumb."

"How is Sandra a Slayer if there are already two in the room? Don't tell me the brunette died, too."

Xander smiled. "We changed the game," he said. "There's lots of them now. So answer a couple for me."

House raised an eyebrow at him.

"If you knew she was a Slayer, why'd you run all those tests? And who the hell are you?"

"I didn't know she was a Slayer until we ran the tests. And as for your second question…" House looked over Xander's shoulder and made eye contact with the redhead. He looked back at Xander and winked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" He pointed down the hallway. "Third door on the left."

"Hey," Xander said as House turned. "You wouldn't happen to know where I can get a decent cup of coffee in here, would you?"

"In a hospital?" House asked, looking at Xander disbelievingly.

"Ah," Xander said. "Right."

House turned and stalked – as well as he could – back toward the elevators, smiling.

* * *

**Two days later**

Xander squinted at the stray ray sunlight as it streamed into the motel window through the almost-shut curtains. He looked out over the sliver of Jersey wilderness outside, trying to ignore the smokestacks and just concentrate on the beauty of nature.

"Go back to sleep," Buffy muttered. Xander glanced over his shoulder to the other bed. Buffy's face was still firmly planted into the pillow, her arm dangling over the side of the bed. Her eyes were shut tight.

"How did you –"

"Your breathing changes," she said, opening her eyes and glaring at him. "Everyone's does." She squeezed her eyes shut again and thrust herself back into the pillow.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll try to –"

There was a knock at the door.

"I got it," Xander whispered. Buffy grunted.

Xander padded over and opened the door. Coffee was immediately thrust into his hands as a petite redhead marched into the room.

"Time to get up, kiddies," she said, much to perkily for the hour of – Xander checked the clock. Okay, so maybe she wasn't too perky for 11 am, but dammit, he wasn't ready for it.

Xander grunted his thanks for the coffee and sat at the small table.

"Come on, Buffy, get up," Willow said. She moved over to the window and pulled the curtains apart, allowing the daylight to invade the pleasant darkness. She did not, however, duck the pillow that was hurled at her head. Xander couldn't help laughing at the hollow 'bongggg' that rang out when Willow's head hit the window.

"Ow," Willow said, frowning and rubbing her forehead.

"I think somebody's tired." Xander commented. The caffeine was starting to kick in.

"I think somebody's on the rag," said Willow.

Xander blinked, set the coffee down, grabbed a change of clothes and headed into the bathroom to take a shower.

"That was mean," Buffy mumbled. She turned over in her bed and looked at Willow, who was grinning.

Willow shrugged and sat down in Xander's vacated chair. "It was fun, though."

Buffy stretched her arms above her head, yawning loudly as she did so. "So why the wake up call?"

"Giles called," she said. "We're finally heading to Maryland."

"Maryland?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, you remember," said Willow. "Robin called when we were in Colorado, then we got distracted by Riley, then here…"

"Vaguely."

"Well, anyway. We get to go recruit some Christian girl."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Haven't most of the girls we've recruited been 'some Christian girl'?"

Willow shrugged. "Giles said that specifically. I wonder if he was warning me to be tactful."

"Xander used to go to church, didn't he?" Buffy asked.

Willow nodded. "Pretty much until he was 12."

Buffy shrugged. "Well, I've never been very good with religious types. The last time I was in church, the guy I was talking to draped himself over a cross and started burning because he loved me. And then before that, I asked a nun about the abjuring of men. And then before that, I was in a Faith suit fighting Faith in a Buffy suit."

"Got it, church issues," said Willow. "As for me, well… you remember Tara's family."

Buffy nodded. "So ask me what I'm thinking."

"What are you thinking?" Willow asked.

"I say we let the lovebirds –"

"I heard that!" Faith yelled from the adjoining room.

"Let the lovebirds," Buffy continued, "do the religious thing, and you and I hop back to Cleveland and see what's up."

"I like that idea," Willow said. She stood, walked over to the bathroom and opened the door.

"Jesus, Will. What?"

"You and Faith are going to Maryland, me and Buffy are going to Cleveland."

"And this couldn't wait until I was out of the shower why?"

Willow grinned. "You're so cute when you're naked."

She shut the door and returned to her seat. Buffy shot her an odd look.

"What?" Willow asked.

Buffy shook her head. "You are a very odd lesbian."

Willow grinned. "So the Maryland thing. You really want to skip out on that?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Religion creepy. I even told Giles that."

Xander stepped out of the bathroom wearing clean clothes and a towel around his head. "So, what's in Maryland?"

"Girl named Hilary Faye," said Willow, handing Xander a folder.

Xander opened it and glanced at the first page. "American Eagle Christian High School?"

Buffy shrugged, a wry smile crossing her lips. "Maybe you can find some Faith."

Xander rolled his eye.

"That's not funny," Faith yelled.

"Yeah," said Willow, trying – and failing – not to smile. "In times like these, Faith can be a little… hard to… come by."

Xander blinked. Buffy raised an eyebrow at the Wicca.

Faith appeared in the door of the room, wearing tight black jeans and a black tank top. "Okay," she said. "That was kind of funny."

----------

The End


End file.
